


Rotten flesh smells like flowers

by noshallowend



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel 616, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Both Receive Their Respective Hugs Don't Worry, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Miscommunication, Not a very pleasant experience in total but, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Some death chemistry and aromatic compounds, Unresolved Tension, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, and absolutely for no reason because they are just bad at communication, like a lot of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-08 18:03:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noshallowend/pseuds/noshallowend
Summary: Every time that person walks by, a few more flower petals scatter down the pavement behind, sending the ever so slightly present floral fragrance.Wade closes his eyes, trying to remember it. Not so long until he starts smelling like that himself. The healing factor helps a lot, but he isn’t so sure it is going to still be this way when the roses come.





	Rotten flesh smells like flowers

**Author's Note:**

> In this AU, the flower thing will not work until the person you love loves you back—and it should be you specifically, not your superhero identity, and you need to hear it for yourself, otherwise if you are not convinced the person loves you, you will still feel depressed and the kind of _mycosis_ caused by the Hanahaki disease will never let you go from then on.

Fuck the flowers.

No, scratch that—you wouldn’t want to fuck with them after all the time _they_ have been fucking you up. In fact, you wouldn’t want anything to do with them, not a single thing, not even a freaking lavender latte.

So, yeah. “To hell with the flowers”, he thinks, as he sweeps a pile of petals away from his bed when another morning comes. When he suddenly jerks up awake in his bed in the dim morning light, choking on that nauseatingly soft gag.

Peter wakes up early—not early enough to call him a morning bird. He’s not even sure it’s early enough to call it a morning, but then again, it’s not too late for him to wake up after the last night’s patrol and the way it finished with a wild villain chase through the cold damp streets in the late AM hours.

He opens his eyes way into the afternoon to the cloud of overwhelming floral smell surrounding him, clenching his head ferociously in a vice grip. The scent makes him sick—or rather he already feels sick before he smells it, he doesn’t really know. It all happens fast. One moment he is lying there all sore feeling nauseous, and the other—He throws up a good bucket of flower petals over the next few minutes, coughing up some leaves and scratching his throat wildly with thorns. “Fuck the roses”, he whines through his half-full mouth, as the petals start coming out all red and sticky. He will now have to take the sheets to laundry before the stains stick, and extra laundry meant extra money, and seriously, he is just so sick of it already he can’t stand it.

Roses mean nothing good. It all started off as something relatively innocent, like camomiles or dandelions—sure, yeah, the bitter taste and the strong roots gave him hell, but then there was the sweet pea that filled up all his lungs climbing up his throat with its tendrils and suffocating him, the peonies with huge flowers that could make his chest burst open, the honeysuckle which tore into his innards with big roots and intoxicated him with poisonous blossoms…

Now it’s roses. Peter supposes it’s all coming closer to an end.

He didn’t have to go to school for another few hours and was planning to just sleep in anyway, but the scent and the nausea coming with it woke him up at half past twelve after coming home around nine, with splitting headache and a broken heart. Too tired to try to delay inevitable, he crawls out of bed begrudgingly and staggers towards the bathroom.

Since worst has come worst, well, he’ll just use the spare time to his advantage and do his laundry before it’s too late to try and get rid of the blood.

*

Wade wakes up at fuck o’clock around midday, and is moderately disappointed with himself.

Scratch that. He is. Like. Thirteen out of ten points disappointed with himself.

He argues with the boxes about the gun in his hand and the fact that if he shot himself now, he wouldn’t have any decent clothes left to get outside and do the fucking laundry.

The usual pile of petals is the least of his concerns. If anything, he is not interested. He sweeps them off the bed and down to the floor, where they join other numerous leaves and petals, lifeless and desiccated. He shoos them carelessly as they rustle around him and slams the door shut.

It’s quarter to one, and he is now approximately five hours late. He wanted to see him. He _needed_ to see him. Well, this just means he’ll have to suffer through one more day somehow. Can’t die anyway.

As his washing machine starts pouring water loudly, he sits in a very uncomfortable plastic chair aimlessly staring through the dirty window. It’s a dull, rainy afternoon, but there are still too many people dashing hither and thither with faces duller than the day. Wade isn’t looking for anyone in particular today. He knows that the only face he is interested in must be already way out of reach, as that person only comes round here in the morning, to grab his coffee from the small shop across the street and then quickly disappear round the corner, leaving a faint smell of something sweet and dear behind.

Wade has been watching him for a few months now. He saw him for the first time when he just came here, and he couldn’t get him out of his head since then. He isn’t stalking him, no. He’s never left this small coin laundry, never followed him. He just watches him go these few steps from one corner to another, to the coffee shop and back into the morning, to dissolve in the crowd.

Every time that person walks by, a few more flower petals scatter down the pavement behind, sending the ever so slightly present floral fragrance.

Wade closes his eyes, trying to remember it. Not so long until he starts smelling like that himself. The healing factor helps a lot, but he isn’t so sure it is going to still be this way when the roses come.

The roses are always the absolute worst.

When Wade opens his eyes, it is to the actual, real smell of roses, and to a pair of very surprised eyes staring back at him.

He rises from his chair slowly. The chair is creaking all the way like a plastic traitor it is.

“Oh hey, hiya”, he waves his hand. “Dirty much, need a wash? Sure it is what you need and not a good ol’ spanking, baby boy?”

That, of course, never leaves his mouth. That’s what he thinks he says, what he thinks he would say, or rather what the boxes think he should say, but instead he just stands there and stares for a second. Then goes to his machine to see how it’s going and how long he still has to wait for it to be finished.

The man’s eyes follow him, and then he turns back to his bag, as if only just remembering about it. Wincing, he pulls out what appears to be a pile of sheets and pillowcases and blankets stained with red.

Wade feels the air hitch in his throat before he collects his courage to articulate:

“I’ve heard if you use seltzer water and lemon, it will be gone in no time”.

The man turns to him indignantly, “I—I don’t have a hangover, thanks!”

“Hangover”, says Wade, not sure what he meant by it. “Hangover. Ha—Huh!” he starts laughing, making the man look annoyed.

“What?” finally asks the man, and Wade has to get his shit together to pull out a decent answer:

“I wasn’t talking about your hangover, baby boy! I was talking about the blood on your sheets”, he nods in the general direction of the man’s stuff.

“Ah… Huh… Oh,” the man finally manages to answer without much of eloquence, and then adds a begrudging, “Thanks.”

Wade grins at him and opens his mouth to go on babbling, but gets to say approximately nothing before the man turns back to his stuff to proceed with the laundry. There’s an awkward, chilly silence in which Wade understands he must have fucked up.

As the man loads his stuff and starts the machine, he turns back and sits down a few seats away from Wade, trying to burn a hole in his own sneakers with his eyes, never lifting his gaze. They sit in silence for a while. Wade plays a stupid phone game, not really paying attention and still watching the man from the corner of his eye. The man seems to have fallen asleep right there, on the uncomfortable plastic little seat, curled up on himself and looking totally miserable.

While he has a chance, Wade is taking in every feature, every little detail he can notice. He has never seen the man for so long and from such a close distance, and now he just admires this mess of brown hair, soft pink lips with the traces of anxious bites, a dash of freckles on his nose, lean body, muscles peeking through the stupid T-shirt saying “I survived my trip to NY”.

Just as Wade is hopelessly losing another round of Sugar Rush, the man suddenly bursts out coughing ferociously, clenching his hands on his shoulders until his nail beds turn white.

“Shit. Hey. Uh. Are you alright?” Wade rushes to him when it doesn’t seem to be stopping.

The man just shakes his head and stretches his hand in front of him, as if not to let Wade come any closer, and goes on coughing.

“I’ll get you some water”, Wade offers, dashing off to a wending machine in the corner.

When Wade comes back with two bottles—he was stupid enough to buy the sparkling but then thought it was a bad idea and had to come back for the still water—the man is already looking a bit better, his breathing still hitching, but getting steadier.

As the man unfolds himself slowly, Wade sees a pile of tender pink flower petals scattered on the floor, on his knees and all around them. When his head is lifting to take in all of Wade, he stops midway and startles looking at all the mess he’s made and then on his T-shirt.

“Oh fuck. Shit. Fuck. Not again…”

The white T-shirt is stained with blood. The stains are not too big and horrible, but still obvious enough for it to be too much to come outside like this.

“I’ve just washed it”, whines the man, “what the fuck. Why does it have to always be like that…”

Wade gulps nervously, offering an awkward, “You know, the same person who told me about seltzer water, she, uh. Said it might be also appropriate to reconsider wearing white? Okay, she might have expressed it more specifically, like “or wear red you fucking dumbass”, not that I was going to use this particular form of advising…”

“Not helping”, whimpered the man. “So not helping right now.”

“I mean”, Wade goes on, “I’ve got a pretty decent red tee right here and now. If you just wait here a bit, I would happily lend it to you. Free of charge. Booty payment acceptable. Sorry, pretend you didn’t hear that last one. As I was saying…”

Wade pauses his babbling for a second to take a look at the man and notices that he’s staring at him incredulously. But there is no fear in this astoundingly pretty brown eyes. Nor there is any disgust, just bland concern and surprise. Amazed, Wade continues a tad bit quieter and more carefully.

“I, uh. I think it might be a bit oversized for you, but still, better than getting all the looks because of the blood on your shirt and not because of how gorgeous you look in mine? Ugh, shouldn’t have said that. Forget that. Again. Jeez, why can’t I fucking hold my tongue just this once.

Wade’s machine beeps, and he jumps to dig through his stuff in search of the said T-shirt. He eventually finds it and, with the looks of a dog who has irrefutably messed up, hands it to the man.

“No need to return that, you can just throw it away. It’s nothing. Oh, and look at the time, I’ve got to run now!” Wade looks at the nonexistent watch on his wrist.

“Wait!” the man suddenly calls after him. “Wait. I… I can’t just throw it away like that. What is your name? Can I have your number?”

Wade stares at him wide-eyed.

“Wade. Wade Wilson.”

“Wade”, repeats the man. “Wade. Thank you, Wade. You literally saved my life. I’m Peter, by the way. Peter Parker”.


End file.
